


An Interesting Challenge

by sylviarachel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, Kid Fic, M/M, Nature and Nurture 'verse, Parentlock, playing in someone else's sandbox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68">earlgreytea68</a>'s "Nature and Nurture" 'verse.</p><p>Oliver Watson-Holmes and his parents meet his Reception teacher for the first time; Holmes-Watson-style events ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Interesting Challenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earlgreytea68](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/gifts), [LapOtter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapOtter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Nature and Nurture](https://archiveofourown.org/works/729134) by [earlgreytea68](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68). 



> So somehow [earlgreytea68](http://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68)'s wonderful [Nature and Nurture](http://archiveofourown.org/works/729134/chapters/1354275) and [LapOtter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LapOtter)'s equally wonderful (but totally different) [Synthesis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/724910/chapters/1344986) got all mixed up in my brain, and this happened. I don’t know.

At exactly ten-fifteen, there was a quick double rap on the open door of Mary’s classroom, and a pleasant tenor voice said, “Miss Morstan?”

Mary looked up; smiled brightly at the short grey-blond man and the small boy at his side, whose pale serious face, wide blue eyes and mop of dark curls in no way resembled him.

 _Bit of an interesting challenge for you this term, Mary_ , the Head had told her a few weeks back, as they were going over this year’s Reception class together.

And Mary had been surprised – _What, just because he’s got two dads?_ she’d said, incredulous – because if Mrs Maberley honestly thought a child with a slightly unconventional family situation presented an interesting challenge to someone who’d been teaching Reception at the Tredannick School for six years, she really hadn’t been paying much attention.

But Mrs Maberley had laughed and said, _No, not at all._ And had spent the next fifteen minutes discussing little Oliver’s placement test scores, which were, Mary had to admit, a bit daunting. _Also,_ Mrs Maberley had said, _you may find Oliver’s parents a bit … difficult. One of them, at any rate._

“Mr Watson?” Mary said now, getting up from her chair and crossing the room to shake the blond man’s hand. “Or is it Mr Holmes?”

“It’s _Doctor_ Watson, actually,” said a voice from the corridor, the sort of velvety baritone voice that really ought to be illegal to use in public, Mary thought, blinking.

Dr Watson grinned at her. “John, please,” he said, sticking out his hand. He had an open, friendly face and a good handshake – firm and confident, an actual greeting rather than an attempt at intimidation. _Not the difficult one, then._

“Mary Morstan,” said Mary. “I’ll be Oliver’s teacher.”

His hand on his son’s shoulder, Dr Watson said, “Ollie, say hello to Miss Morstan.” Then he glanced over his own shoulder, out into the corridor, and said in a tone of fond exasperation, “You too, love. Stop lurking in the corridor.”

“Hello, Oliver,” Mary said, crouching down so her face was level with his. “It’s good to meet you. Do you like to be called Oliver, or Ollie?”

“Hello, Miss Morstan,” Oliver said, and shook hands gravely. His eyes were really rather astonishing – a pale blue-green, like photos of glacial ice Mary had seen in travel magazines, and very expressive. “I prefer Oliver,” he continued; and then, in a confidential tone, “I’m actually called Oliver Copernicus. Daddy chose Oliver because it was the most common name in Britain the year I was born, and Papa chose Copernicus to wind Daddy up.”

Then he grinned at Mary, tilting his head a little – obviously inviting her to share a joke, though Mary couldn’t imagine what the joke might be – and suddenly the resemblance to Dr Watson was there after all, plain as day.

“Oliver, then,” said Mary, smiling. She smiled at her students whenever she could, of course – first impressions of school were so important, especially for gifted kids – but she really couldn’t have helped smiling at Oliver: he was utterly charming. “Why don’t you have a look around the classroom, Oliver, while I talk to your parents?”

Oliver glanced up at his father, who nodded encouragement. “All right,” he said, agreeably enough; and then, “Thank you.”

He stood still for a moment, surveying the classroom – dramatic centre, easels, SMART Board, computers, sand table, alphabet and maths posters, Orff instruments, science corner, aquarium, bookshelves, terrarium, piano, reading nook – and then made a beeline for the plastic bin of miscellaneous Meccano parts.

Mary took note, as she always did, of what attracted him.

When she turned back to Dr Watson, there was another man standing next to him, frowning a little, with an arm possessively around his shoulders. _Well, we know Oliver’s not adopted, then_ , Mary thought: this man – who was tall and lanky and elegant, public-school to Dr Watson’s lower-middle-class-boy-made-good – was clearly the source of Oliver’s glacial-ice eyes, his tumbled black curls, the straight nose and Cupid’s-bow lips and sharp cheekbones.

“Hello,” Mary said brightly. “You must be Oliver’s dad, then. Mr Holmes, yes?”

The tall man just looked at her. After a moment he drew breath and opened his mouth, but Dr Watson inexplicably said, “Sherlock,” in a gently warning tone, and he closed it again, rolled his eyes, and recited, “How do you do, Miss Morstan?”

“Very well, thanks, Mr Holmes,” said Mary, somewhat nonplussed. “Now, if you’d both like to come and sit down over here … ?”

And she ushered them ahead of her to the reading nook.

Mary always held her first-week-of-school conferences in the reading nook, which she’d situated in the curve of the classroom’s bow window and which had padded benches at a normal window-seat height, so didn’t force adult-sized people into Reception-sized chairs. (The children mostly used the cushions on the floor, although there were always some who clambered up to the benches, particularly the ones who liked to watch the songbirds at the feeders outside the window.) As they crossed the classroom, Dr Watson looked about him with pleased interest and Mr Holmes with a sort of absent-minded scowl.

“Stop it, love,” Dr Watson murmured.

“I thought this was meant to be a stimulating environment, John,” Mr Holmes muttered back, bending his head toward Dr Watson’s silver-blond one. “There isn’t even any chemistry equipment.”

“It’s a reception classroom, not an R and D lab.” Dr Watson sounded amused. “Besides, it’s not as though Ollie needs any more chemistry equipment.”

Mary suspected they thought she couldn’t hear them; parents never seemed to realize that if you taught academically gifted four- and five-year-olds all day, you needed eyes in the back of your head and ears like radar antennae or you’d be finished before you’d got fairly started. She’d lost a couple of classroom assistants that way.

They sat down, Mary on the left-hand bench and Oliver’s fathers on the opposite one. Dr Watson looked relaxed and comfortable, although he glanced over at Oliver every couple of minutes, keeping an eye. Mr Holmes, on the other hand, was stiff and wary, as though he suspected this was all some kind of elaborate charade and the thumbscrews were going to come out at any minute.

* * *

They talked about the curriculum, and Oliver’s reading level, and what sorts of enrichment activities Oliver had access to at home, and what additional opportunities he would have at school. While Mary was explaining her classroom book-lending system, Oliver left the Meccano set and wandered over to the piano, where he began picking out what Mary placed after a few bars as the Schubert song about the trout. Mr Holmes explained that Oliver’s favourite composers were actually J.S. Bach and Benjamin Britten, and Dr Watson added with a mischievous grin that he also quite liked the House Martins and Mumford and Sons, which caused his husband to roll his eyes and scoff.

Then Oliver winked at his Papa and began singing, in a sweet treble and perfectly in tune, “ _So make your siren’s call/ And sing all you want/ I will not hear what you have to say_ ,” and then, to Mary’s complete astonishment – because even at Tredannick, some things just didn’t happen very often – both his fathers joined in, first the grinning Dr Watson, in a nice light tenor, and then, a bit grudgingly, Mr Holmes’s lovely bass-baritone, till they were singing pitch-perfect three-part harmony. By the time the song ended on “ _And I’ll find strength in pain/ And I will change my ways/ I’ll know my name as it’s called again_ ,” Oliver appeared delighted with his world and everything in it; his parents, though, were exchanging a look that, if Mary was reading it right, said they had personal experience with finding strength in pain.

Mary took a deep breath and managed, “So musical support at home won’t be a problem, then.”

Oliver went happily back to the Meccano, and Dr Watson explained that Oliver spent most of his time with adults and was very excited, but also a bit nervous, about starting school with twenty unknown children his own age. Mr Holmes didn’t scoff at this; in fact, he went very quiet and wary. Mary looked at Oliver, absorbed in his building, and said honestly that she didn’t expect Oliver would have any difficulty in making friends, but of course she would keep an eye on things just in case.

* * *

At five minutes to eleven, someone’s phone buzzed. Mr Holmes suddenly plunged his right hand into the pocket of his coat, pulled out a battered iPhone, and read what must have been a text message, because he jumped up from his seat and began striding around the classroom, texting frantically. Dr Watson sighed and gave Mary an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he said, as if he had been the one to interrupt the conversation. “I expect it’s urgent.”

“Lestrade’s got a case for us,” Mr Holmes said, looking up from his phone. Mary blinked at his suddenly enthused expression, which made him look like a completely different person, and also several years younger and even more like his son. Who, Mary now saw, had abandoned his towering and really very sophisticated Meccano structure and come running, looking almost equally enthused.

“What kind of case, Daddy?” he said eagerly.

Dr Watson frowned, and gave Mary a cautious glance.

“Locked-room murder,” Mr Holmes told Oliver. “No apparent cause of death.”

Suddenly, like a set of scattered puzzle pieces suddenly making a coherent picture, all the clues came together in Mary’s mind. _Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson_ , she thought. _The detective and his blogger. That huge scandal at the Met, and the suicide that really wasn’t, and the criminal mastermind who wasn’t but then actually was._ She blinked again. She’d read about them in the papers once or twice recently; she hadn’t realized they were even in a relationship, let alone married and raising a child together. But although she would never have connected the melodramatic media coverage with the perfectly ordinary-looking man still sitting across from her, wearing a plain silver-coloured wedding band and a long-suffering expression, now that she’d worked it out it seemed perfectly obvious.

“Are we going straight away?” Oliver demanded. He turned to Dr Watson. “Papa, please may we go now? Daddy’s got a _case_.”

 _Oh my_ , Mary thought. _This_ is _going to be an interesting year._


End file.
